It starts at the line above and goes downhill from there. The story involves a mad journalist (Raoul Duke, based on Thompson) and his Samoan attorney (Dr. Gonzo, based on Chicano attorney/activist Oscar Zeta Acosta, with nationality changed to protect the innocent guilty) traveling from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to chronicle the Mint 400 desert bike race for Sports Illustrated, consuming many, many illegal drugs in the process. In actuality, Thompson was writing a piece on Acosta and the then-fledgling Chicano-rights movement, and both were glad to have an excuse to get out of L.A. because Acosta's radical friends thought that he was spending too much time with Thompson, a gringo WASP whom they suspected of being a police agent (not at all an unrealistic suspicion in 1970).note The piece about Acosta was, in 1971, published in Rolling Stone as "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan." When this falls through, in part due to their severe drug saturation, Raoul attempts to return to Los Angeles, but gets called back into Vegas by Rolling Stone for the National District Attorneys Association's Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. He accepts largely out of irony.

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The film version follows the book absurdly closely, with the vast majority of content unabridged from the book, dialogue and all. Depp, a close personal friend of Thompson, also gives a spot-on (and very informed) performance.

A plot summary cannot cover the radically unique feel of the book. Largely written in a stream of consciousness, the book covers the tail end and self-destruction of the '60s freedom and drug culture and the beginning of the increasing tightness of the 1970s. As one summary said, it can be said to be an increasingly desperate search for the American Dream in a time where it seems impossible.

Also contains a famous line about Goddamned Bats, though they are not used in the book or film themselves.

Canon Illustrations: It is hard to imagine the book without the accompanying Ralph Steadman art.

Casual Car Giveaway: The book opens with Duke and his attorney picking up a hitchhiker as they drive to Las Vegas in a brand-new fireapple-red convertible. The kid's never ridden in a convertible before, and Duke briefly considers just giving it to him.

Catch-Phrase: "As your attorney, I advise you to..." Usually followed by advice no attorney should give their client.

Circus of Fear: The Circus-Circus Casino (and its movie version, Bazooko's), at least when you are already hallucinating.

"The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the sixth Reich."

The Alleged Car: What the Great White Whale becomes by the end of the book.

"I tried to put the top up, for privacy, but something was wrong with the motor. The generator light had been on, fiery red, ever since I'd driven the thing into Lake Mead on a water test. A quick run along the the dashboard disclosed that every circuit in the car was totally fucked. Nothing worked. Not even the headlights — and when I hit the air conditioner button I heard a nasty explosion under the hood."

Cool Hat: Inverted. Duke's hats and allegedly Cool Shades are mostly horribly uncool. Which is part of his demented charm, really.

This is certainly a matter of personal preference between different viewers as many consider the wardrobe of this film and the style of Hunter S. Thompson in real life to be incredibly cool in a way not many could probably pull off.

Crazy Awesome: Invoked in Duke's description of Dr. Gonzo as he leaves Las Vegas—though with an definite emphasis on crazy. When Hunter S. Thompson thinks you're out of your mind...

There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Inverted with Duke's musings about what to do with the hitchhiker should he discover the truth about him and Dr. Gonzo. Most of it is mumbled to himself, roughly in sync with the narration; the line "Jesus, did I say that?" is the only thing he actually says out loud.

Disconnected by Death: Gonzo fakes this to get rid of Lucy. He puts her into a room in a different hotel, and phones her from the room he is sharing with Duke. While calmly telling her how he stomped Duke (supposedly his rival for Lucy's affections) he starts screaming and shouting as if the room had been invaded, moans "Don't put that thing on me," and then hangs up.

O MY GOD! THEY'RE KICKING THE DOOR DOWN!

Drink Order: Either rum or Wild Turkey 101 for Duke—as with the real Thompson—although he's not averse to tequila or beer.

Death, I was sure of it. Not even my lungs seemed to be functioning. I needed artificial respiration, but I couldn't even open my mouth to say so. I was going to die, just sitting there on the bed, unable to move

More generally, Duke and Gonzo take a lot of drugs, but they don't seem to have much fun. Duke's hallucinations are frightening and disorienting, and Gonzo keeps on lashing out with knives.

Drugs Are Good: They're certainly useful if you're bummed about how The '60s turned out. Also, Duke and Gonzo are not shown to suffer any permanent consequences from their various bad trips.

Electrified Bathtub: On a bad trip, Dr. Gonzo demands this. Duke fakes it by unplugging the tape machine and hurling a grapefruit into the tub.

I'm a Humanitarian: "He offered me human blood as payment, said it would take me higher than cocaine. But I settled for some of this instead."

They freak out a few cops at the conference by making up stories about cannibal Satanists raiding cafes.

Immune to Drugs: Duke and Gonzo take enough drugs to kill the Third Marines, though this doesn't stop the effect they experience.

Kangaroo Court: Duke fears that he and Gonzo will be tried and imprisoned by one of these because of Lucy.

Karma Houdini: Duke and Gonzo binge on over a dozen different illegal narcotics over the course of a weekend that should have killed them by this point, they threaten the lives of over a dozen hotel employees, patrons and the general public, they go through two different cars, Gonzo has drinks served to a minor (with implications that he was planning on having sex with her), they destroy hotel property and buy an absurd portion of room service with a collection of bills that stack up in the thousands (in not one, but two different hotels, all on funding from Duke's employers), and this is all that Duke allows the reader to see. The story ends before any real foreseeable consequences could rain down on either of them.

Kick the Dog: There's a waitress in Las Vegas who's still crying under utter panic. It's in this scene that their antics stop being fun and truly cross the line.

And the hitchhiker. Duke was planning on killing him in a drug-induced paranoia.

Knife Nut: Gonzo likes waving knives around when stoned, but never quite stabs or slashes anyone.

Lighter and Softer: The audio drama version does not include the scenes where Gonzo terrorises the waitress and the hotel maid.

Duke: We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

No Celebrities Were Harmed: Subverted by the first editions of the book, despite the best efforts of the publishers. When publication of the book was still being negotiated, the publishers' lawyers tried to get Thompson to delete the references to his attorney engaging in criminal acts; even as depicted through an Expy, it could have badly damaged his reputation and been considered libelous. Thompson reached out to Oscar Zeta Acosta, the real life model for the fictional Dr. Gonzo, and asked him to sign a release. Acosta however initially refused, not because he was concerned over libelous content, but because he took offense at the changes made to his character — he was a proud Chicano, and considered it an insult that the book described him as "a 300-pound Samoan". He would only sign the release on the condition that he be explicitly named as the basis for Gonzo on the book's cover (which was eventually done by placing a photograph of him and Thompson on it). In other words, he insisted on taking full credit for the very criminal behavior the lawyers feared would harm and/or offend him.

Noodle Incident: The book is full of moments of unexplained weirdness. Duke mentions smacking on a table with his "open, bleeding palm", but he never actually bothers to explain where the cut on his hand came from. Nor do we ever find out where he got the marlinspike that Doctor Gonzo says he was waving around during his freakout in the Mint Hotel bar. Or why there's tape all over his legs.

Opening Monologue: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold..."

"It was all over now. We'd abused every rule that Vegas lived by: burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help. The only chance now, I felt, was the possibility that we'd gone to such excess that nobody in the position to bring the hammer down on us could possibly believe it."

Title Drop: Duke is imagining what the prosecution might say if the Lucy case came to trial:

the drug cache in the possession of the defendants at the time of the arrest was enough to kill an entire platoon of United States Marines and gentlemen, I use the word kill with all due respect for the fear and loathing I'm sure it provokes in every one of you

Totally Radical: The District Attorney's Conference is shown to be far behind the times.

"There was simply no call, at this conference, for anything but a massive consumption of Downers: reds, grass, and booze, because the whole program had apparently been set up by people who had been in a Seconal stupor since 1964. Here were more than a thousand top-level cops telling each other 'we must come to terms with the drug culture,' but they had no idea where to start. They couldn't even find the goddamn thing. There were rumors in the hallways that maybe the Mafia was behind it. Or perhaps the Beatles."

Something of Truth in Television and Hilarious in Hindsight as chemicals in grapefruit can enhance the body's ability to uptake certain drugs. Which is why people on blood pressure drugs (in particular, but not exclusively) are warned not to eat or drink grapefruit.

Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Thompson called the book a failed attempt at gonzo journalism because of the liberties he had to take to make it even slightly readable. There's some time compression and a lot of background stuff missing. For instance, the main reason that Thompson and Oscar Zeta Acosta went to Las Vegas in the first place was to discuss the incidents that eventually formed the substance of Thompson's essay "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan;" they needed to get out of Los Angeles because Acosta was a big-time civil rights attorney and his bodyguards were very zealous and very suspicious of gringos, even ones like Thompson who were sympathetic to the Chicano cause. The biggest change to the plot is that in real life the Mint 400 race and the drug conference took place on two separate trips, about a month apart; in the book and movie, they happen on two consecutive weekends.

Vitriolic Best Buds: Duke and Gonzo are inseparable yet spend much of the movie hurling abuse at each other. And that's when one of them isn't trying to kill the other one in a drug-induced frenzy.

Gonzo: (moaning in distress) Goddamn mescaline. Why can't they make it a little less pure?

What the Hell, Hero?: The scene with the waitress in the diner; Duke calls Gonzo out on it and realizes their time in Vegas is up.

Duke gets a few of these as well, although his are more just him saying horrible things, such as his plans for Lucy: "These cops will go fifty bucks a head to beat her into submission and then gang-fuck her. We can set her up in one of these back-street motels, hang pictures of Jesus all over the room, then turn these fucking pigs loose on her." (Although in this case, Duke was making a very pointed joke to Gonzo about the world of legal trouble in which he was in danger of landing them both by bringing Lucy with him.)

Adaptational Modesty: Quite a few scenes in the book where Gonzo (and sometimes Duke) is walking around butt naked have him partially dressed instead, probably due to the MPAA's discomfort with Male Frontal Nudity.

Duke: There I was... (sees Thompson sitting at a table) Mother of god, there I am! Holy fuck?! Clearly I was a victim of the drug explosion...a natural street freak just eating whatever came by.

Downer Ending: The film ends on a high note with the dash to the airport, but before that we get several scenes of Gonzo becoming threatening and violent, most notably with the waitress in the diner and the maid who tried to clean their room. The drug-fueled craziness starts losing its entertainment value when it starts hurting other people instead of just Duke and Gonzo.

His one year old Ford Maverick is battered, has a replacement hood and hubcaps, and smokes like a chimney.

He drives the red Impala over a two foot wide concrete curb at 45 mph, backward, while in the rental agency parking lot.

The white Cadillac convertible is in much the same condition as the Ford after 48 hours with him.

Dutch Angle: Used frequently to convey the disorienting effects of the drugs.

Funny Background Event: Pay attention to Raoul's behaviour when Gonzo's talking to other people, because you're going to laugh. In particular, when the both of them go to see a Debbie Reynolds show, Gonzo just busts out the locked entrance and takes out the security belt, starting to talk with the doorman. Raoul's just acting out, high on a bunch of drugs, while playing with the security belt, even struggling with a lady that wanted to take the belt out.

Genre-Busting: This is a movie that must be seen at least twice, since the first time you watch it, you will not understand what kind of movie you just watched. Was it a comedy? Was it a political movie? Was it meant to be serious? Was it meant to just make you laugh? What the hell happened in the last third of the movie?

Kick the Dog: Duke abuses a dwarf by making him crawl for change in a flashback at the beginning of the movie.

In Hunter Thompson's commentary track, he angrily insists that Depp improvised throwing coins at the dwarf, and that in real life he would never have done something so demeaning. He felt it was a deeply inaccurate moment. Depp insists he merely threw the coins upward in the direction of the dwarf, which appears to be a more accurate description of the event if you watch the scene.

Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: In the book, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo repeatedly visit the Circus Circus casino; in the movie, it becomes Bazooko's Circus.

Mood Whiplash: When Dr. Gonzo threatened the waitress with a knife, you knew the slapstick was over.

Noodle Incident: Lampshaded. Flash Forward and back again to the aftermath of the second hotel-room trashing and vandalism spree, including a mini-riot that ensues when they're caught vandalizing their own car (a brand-new Cadillac), an ape assault, dried ketchup stains that look like blood, a burned out mattress, and an entirely flooded room filled with a pyramid of TV screens. And Duke wakes up wearing a strap-on alligator tail with a microphone taped to his face. (Some of these incidents are recounted first-hand in the book, however.)

Duke: (Dimly remembered flashback) You people voted for Hubert Humphrey! And you killed Jesus!

Pragmatic Adaptation: The movie leaves out most of Duke's longer expositions on the 60's drug culture as well as his slow downward spiral towards BSOD after the diner incident.

Rape as Drama: Subverted. Near the end of the film, Duke wakes up in the hotel room to see Gonzo apparently raping a woman. He was only physically assaulting her, so Duke is able to bullshit his way out of it. (She was the maid who had come to clean the room).

Reckless Gun Usage: While driving to Vegas, Gonzo waves a revolver around and starts pulling the trigger. Luckily, it is not loaded. When trying to leave Vegas the first time, Duke blasts away in the desert  it's loaded now. After that we get the adrenochrome sequence, in which Duke snorts cocaine off the barrel of the gun, which is held by Gonzo.

Running Gag: Any time Duke or Gonzo freaks out in public while the other is in a lucid state, the latter will explain to the people around him, "I'm sorry, he's drunk" or "This man has a heart condition." It's surprising how often that seems to do the trick.

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